To Mr Scratch

[_Yoda]

've just now returned from spending the past four hours involved with the funeral and interment of a close friend who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at twenty-seven, suffered from it for sixteen years, and was bedridden for the past fourteen years. She has been a major focus of our life for more than a decade and a half.

Daniel, I'm so sorry about the loss of your friend. Your family and your friend's family will be in my prayers.

[_asbestosman]

[Although I won't say who wrote this (as per my Mod oath), I feel it is important to also attest that it was NOT Dr. Peterson.]

This is just a hunch, but I take it Scratch himself didn't write it either.

[_Yoda]

[Although I won't say who wrote this (as per my Mod oath), I feel it is important to also attest that it was NOT Dr. Peterson.]

I'll second this.

[_Scottie]

This is just a hunch, but I take it Scratch himself didn't write it either.

Nope.

[_The Nehor]

Doing a word-print study I have come up with the following percentages suggesting who wrote it:

32% Leonard Nimoy
23% Harmony
20% Spaulding
13% Tolkien
11% Scratch's Mom
1% Satan

[_harmony]

Doing a word-print study I have come up with the following percentages suggesting who wrote it:

32% Leonard Nimoy
23% Harmony
20% Spaulding
13% Tolkien
11% Scratch's Mom
1% Satan

Harmony? it's more likely it was you, silly Nehor.

[_The Nehor]

Doing a word-print study I have come up with the following percentages suggesting who wrote it:

32% Leonard Nimoy
23% Harmony
20% Spaulding
13% Tolkien
11% Scratch's Mom
1% Satan

Harmony? it's more likely it was you, silly Nehor.

I was too lazy to add too many people to the study so I selected only six randomly.

[_Scratchopolis]

I see he is unwilling to listen to or face the charges I level.

[_Chap]

I see he is unwilling to listen to or face the charges I level.

This was the original post:

I've read some of your "critiques" and some of your "correspondence" with apologists of the Church. I am a long-time ex-member and opponent of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I am absolutely embarassed that your brand of dialog about the Church is published on the internet, let alone in print. Your entire attack on my old faith appears to consist largely of making childish personal attacks and snide comments about apologists of the Church.

Here's a hint: be bigger than those who criticize you, and maybe someone will take you more seriously than they will the apologist. Be bigger, kinder, and more in control of the facts and your own argument than those who criticize you, and maybe you'll reveal the Church for what it is. As it is, your tactics are an embarrassment to those who left.

Please stop what you are doing. You will drive more people back to the Church of Jesus Christ than you will ever help leave it. Thank you.

Are there actually any 'charges' here? I would think that in order to be counted as a 'charge', we would have to see statements that referred to objective events, of the kind that could be checked on the basis of evidence and testimony.

Thus it would be a 'charge' against Scratch if one said that he had stolen a car, told a lie, or had sex with an under-age girl. If however all one does is to say that:

1. Scratchopolis finds Scratch embarrassing
2. Scratch's attacks on apologists are childish and snide
3. Scratch should be 'bigger, kinder'.

that seems to be no more than Scratchopolis's opinion. Whether Scratch takes any notice of it will depend on Scratch's regard for Scratchopolis, will it not?

Of course to tell a person engaged in debate that it is a good idea to be "more in control of the facts and your own argument than those who criticize you" is scarcely a charge, more a statement of the blindingly obvious. I doubt whether Scratch would argue with that.

I am of course Scratch. And Daniel Peterson too. Will you take the red or the blue pill?

[_Thama]

Please stop what you are doing. You will drive more people back to the Church of Jesus Christ than you will ever help leave it. Thank you.

I highly doubt this. I have yet to hear of a single person who returned to the church because Scratch drove them there.

Do you believe the apologists should be above criticism?

While I certainly wouldn't return to the Church because of him, I can attest that as a questioning TBM, when I initially came over here to explore and listen to another perspective, the black-helicopter mentality and the trailer-park mudslinging of various board members drove me away from ever wanting to participate and reinforced my conditioning of "bitter ex-Mormons". It wasn't until I was safely out of the Church that I came back over only to find that many of these were gone.

The posters who helped open my eyes were people like Sethbag, The Dude, and Tarski... not Scratch. I don't know him and have never conversed with him, he may be a great guy. I just find his arguments, focus and persistence to be counterproductive and off-putting.